


Flannel and Poetry

by AvidReader3019



Series: Lumberjack Dipper Ramblings [2]
Category: Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Dipper Pines Being An Idiot, Dorks, Dorks in Love, M/M, Stupidity, Wirt is Not Impressed, lumberjack Dipper
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27577175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvidReader3019/pseuds/AvidReader3019
Summary: Lumberjack Dipper with Librarian Wirt thrown in the mix. They're dorks and Wirt is unimpressed but also oddly fascinated at how someone so intelligent could be this stupid.
Relationships: Dipper Pines/Wirt (Over the Garden Wall)
Series: Lumberjack Dipper Ramblings [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2014480
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Over The Gravity Falls





	Flannel and Poetry

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so so bad at titles and summaries, but also I wasn't kidding about flooding ao3 with Lumberjack Dipper and I have nothing further to say on that.

Dipper takes a deep breath before starting forward. He’s not sure why he’s so nervous, it’s not a big deal, it’s stupid. In fact, he should go home and forget this whole thing; forget years worth of training and embarrassment and, yeah, that’s not an option. 

He tries to wipe his hands off on a checkered red and black sleeve (sweat will only impede his grip) while staring at the lever like it’s a dragon and not the dumb game it is. 

Scratch that, he had significantly less fear in his eyes when he started down a dragon and that was decidedly more cool and less dorky and  _ oh god what does it say about him that he’s doing this? _

His brain helpfully supplies a  _ Well, Dan did it. _ in response and he clenches his jaw before wrapping his fingers around the lever. 

He learned his lesson last time, he really did, he knows he’s his own person and his real strength comes from his character and all that, but the satisfaction of doing this… He’d love to come out on top, no big deal if he doesn’t since his identity doesn't rest on the outcome, dramatics aside, but man would he love to just show how much he’s changed, how much he’s improved in this area after so long.

He wouldn’t say he lived the last few years solely for this moment, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t stay awake at night waiting, wondering about this. The last few nights were spent in nervous anticipation, he may have been working a little harder than normal, not that it’d do any good. The only reason he’s chosen today of all days is because Mabel spent the entire weekend making fun of him and he promised to just get it over with. 

He plans to win (hopefully), get out, go home and forget all of this, well maybe not forget... He may or may not have gotten a bit carried away; meaning he won’t ever be able to escape what he’s done in preparation. This moment will never be forgotten, whatever the outcome may be, goodness knows he’s already dedicated more time and effort than anyone should have.

Never let it be said that Dipper Pines does anything halfway. He really can’t go back from this. People slowly started to depend on him for firewood during the winter and for keeping all of the monsters at bay and he can’t ever escape that, doesn’t want to, and it was all for this, originally at least; it became much more than that, so if he fails... It’s not like he’ll get another shot. 

He has one chance to prove them all wrong, if he loses, not only will he get laughed out of the room,  _ again _ , but there won’t be a next try. A third time would just be pathetic. Again, he knows logically, reasonably speaking, it’ll be fine, but it’ll take him a little while to recover from the embarrassment.

He tightens his grip on the handle and watches as the lights blink on. One by one. His heart rate skyrockets watching them crawl slowly upward, just like he did years ago, only now he’s a hell of a lot less arrogant, less certain. 

He feels his grip weaken with the thoughts and  _ nu uh not this time, not again _ . He shifts his right side forward and leans downward, pouring every ounce of strength he has into the hand on the machine, shoving his weight into his grip. He thinks of the years of hard labor, how hard he would be fighting if this was some kind of creature trying to hurt someone, how hard his grip would be if Bill somehow had a neck he could get his hands around, he thinks of how badly he wants to not look like a complete idiot again. 

It works. 

The lights all fill up until they reach the top and this time it stays lit. His jaw drops while he stumbles backwards and nearly screams, laughing instead. “YES! YES FINALLY!” 

He turns to face the crowd behind him to gloat, but hesitates when he sees the raised eyebrows and frowns. “Oh.” The silence is suffocating and he rubs the back of his neck. “I, uh- nevermind, just was bored is all I guess.” He laughs nervously and hunches in on himself, trying to get out as fast as possible.

He fights the discomfort and moves to leave... S _ tupid. This was so stupid. Great going dipstick...Yet another brilliant plan-- _ His thoughts are interrupted when a hand grips his arm. 

It’s nowhere near enough to stop him if he wanted to jerk away, barely even covering his arm, not quite gripping it. He pauses to see who it is, but doesn’t recognize them at all. They jerk their head over to the machine when they make eye contact, which Dipper has to look  _ up _ to make and it’s so unfamiliar it throws him off balance for a second. “Uh I think you broke it.”

“Wha-“ Dipper shakes his head from his initial confusion, turns, and sure enough the handle is bent at an awkward angle that it definitely shouldn’t be bent at and the lights won’t turn off and _ is that smoke? _

The pride that fills him is tempered with embarrassment and the embarrassment wins out with the looks he’s getting. He coughs and gestures towards it vaguely. “Well it’s like a million years old, guys, probably ran out of uh steam power or something and it’s rickety as uh yeah” Deja vu fills him at the all too familiar words and his cheeks heat.

* * *

Wirt isn't sure what his plan is past 'hey you can't just walk away when you broke a thing!' Grabbing some random guy's arm probably isn't the best course of action, especially not when said guy just broke a manliness tester,  _ what the hell even is that anyways? there's no way strength can possibly be an accurate metric for the social construct of masculinity-- _

Anyway, it's broken now,  _ no loss there _ and now Wirt has decided to not only bother him about it, but to grab an arm with very clearly defined muscle that Wirt can't even really get his hand all the way around and he's abruptly certain that it could likely snap him in half. But, the guy also cheered when he won, like a complete dork, and tried to backpedal afterward… He can’t be all that scary Wirt reasons and it causes him to tighten his grip a bit with confidence until he realizes that basically means he’s squeezing the guys’ arm and he lets his gaze drop to the floor.

The room is definitely warmer, and this guy needs to fix the machine before a fire starts! With smoke and the room warming like that there could be some real damage, but when Wirt looks, the guy is just watching him quietly, assessing.

There's an intelligence behind his eyes that Wirt wouldn't have anticipated with someone of his uh build,  _ a rather nice build _ , but he still has the presence of mind to gesture towards the machine and ask something about it. Wirt isn't really paying attention, more concerned about  ~~ feeling up his arm ~~ , checking for any sign of him tensing for a hit, not wanting to get assaulted for pointing this out.

The stranger looks genuinely concerned and Wirt untenses. The guy at least seems to not have noticed, it's not like he's actively trying to break things, which is good, but, also _ how do you not notice yourself breaking a machine! _

Wirt lets go of his arm, choosing to fiddle with his own sleeves instead. His words though... Wirt has been perfectly polite so far, and he really doesn’t wanna start any trouble, but that might be the dumbest thing he's ever heard. "I'm pretty sure a game machine wouldn't use steam power with it being, you know, not the 19th century anymore."

The stranger snorts and relaxes, with the exception of the slight blush still tinting his cheeks he seems a little more at ease in a way Wirt wishes he was. "You'd be surprised."

Wirt's eyes narrow. "Oh would I?"

The man's blush deepens to a crimson hue. "Oh! um yeah, probably?" He looks at the ground seeming much smaller and less threatening in a second. "No, uh, maybe not... Depends on how long you've lived in this weird town. I don't think I've seen you around?"

Wirt blinks at the shift in mood. This combined with his reaction to winning earlier eases all of Wirt's apprehension, he suddenly can't remember why he found this guy intimidating in the first place and finds himself extending a hand. "No, you probably haven't since I just got here. Name's Wirt by the way." 

"Oh, in that case, welcome! I'm Dipper." 

Wirt tilts his head in confusion at the weird name but shuts his mouth upon receiving a judgmental eyebrow raise in return. _ Wirt isn't all that common either, noted.  _

Dipper clears his throat and continues "Sorry your first introduction is uh this mess." He gestures towards the room, wincing. "I-" He sighs. "It's a really really long story, but I promise I'm not someone who enjoys breaking perfectly good games for fun.”

Wirt laughs and shakes his head. "There's no way for me to know that, and, from what I've seen? You're gonna need a lot more than that to convince me. For all I know, you travel the world looking for machines to break."  _ What the hell are you doing? This is so forward and weird and unlike you and why are you flirting when the building is about to burn down! _ Wirt blames it on the lack of oxygen, but also maybe he really wants to know more about this weird,  ~~cute~~ , ~~oddly gentle~~ , scary-looking, muscle man.

A confident smile inches ever-so-slightly over Dipper's face. "Well, then, I can spend my time convincing you otherwise." He pauses and throws a thumb over his shoulder. "And I'd love to talk more, but we should probably fix the fire first."

Wirt scans the surroundings and notices they're the only ones left in the diner. No one wanted to be left in the burning building, it seems. Dipper is already heading towards the machine when he looks back and he follows.

“So what’s the uh plan, exactly?”

Dipper shrugs and runs his hands along the machine, looking for something? Before he can find it he pulls his hands back quickly. " _ Shiiit.” _ He wipes his hands on his jeans and glares at the machine, which Wirt finds completely unfair, it didn’t do anything wrong,  _ it’s not the machine's fault that you’re a dumbass. _ He keeps all of that to himself and nods sympathetically instead.

“Okay yep fire is still hot, noted. I’m trying to find where the fire is coming from and then I was thinking that if we can put the source out, the rest should be fine, probably.”

Wirt hums his approval and starts following the smoke with his eyes, a smarter method since  _ his _ hands can remain placed firmly behind his back and away from the fire and more importantly,  _ not  _ burned. "It seems like it's coming from the bottom, from underneath the lever? Makes sense since that’s the part you, ya know,  _ broke _ ."

"Oh! Yeah that makes sense actually, I just didn’t realize because I figured it had to have broken on its own-- Did I really--” He coughs. “Alright well, then, uh I'll just--" Dipper spins around eyes scanning across the walls and he winces. "Oh okay, even better, yikes, alright.”

“What’s wrong?”

Dipper grins, “Oh you mean besides the building being on fire or--”

Wirt smacks him on the chest,  _ hard _ . His hand hurts afterward, though he doesn’t flinch, he wouldn’t dream of giving Dipper the satisfaction, unfortunately Dipper doesn't either. “Obviously! I meant what new unexpected difficulty has popped up that would cause such rousing and startled speech as ‘yikes’.”

Dipper rolls his eyes. “Oh, well in that case, there’s no fire extinguisher.”

Wirt’s eyes widen. “What kind of place doesn’t have a fire extinguisher!?”

“Uh this one? I honestly didn’t really expect one, but I had hoped-- Wait, I have an idea, hold on.” Dipper practically rips off his flannel, leaving nothing for Wirt to look at, but the shirt underneath and Wirt moves his gaze resolutely to the wall. He’s being stupid, he knows that, but this guy just took off his shirt, or sleeves or whatever and Wirt couldn’t just stare at his chest, that’d be rude and weird of him, so wall.

Dipper grabs ahold of the side of the flimsy, old, rusted, and _currently on fire_ box using the flannel to protect his hands and _yanks_. It just takes a couple pulls for it to come free, not as long as Wirt has anticipated, and he assumes it’s because of the dilapidated nature of the mechanisms, ignoring the whole “Dipper” part of the equation. His eyes were fixed on the wall, Dipper may as well not have been there, and they definitely _did not_ flick over to catch (read: stare) as Dipper’s arm muscles tense against the fabric of his thin shirt which begins to strain and look much more like when you try and stretch a full-size sheet on a queen-size bed than a shirt. Wirt notes that this wreck of a human can’t seem to find well fitting shirts either and shakes his head disapprovingly. _Wow, what a mess, what an absolute wreck, what a problem_ , Wirt’s in hell having to spend so much time with someone this ~~_attractive... stop it, you’re better than this_~~ **stupid**. Yeah, stupid is the right word, what an idiot.

The opening of the box reveals a relatively small fire, considering the amount of smoke, and Wirt surprises himself by throwing his sweater off and on it, without hesitation, to smother the flames. The flames slowly die out and they watch until they’re left standing in a smoke filled diner with a creepy, half-melted-on-the-inside, manliness tester, which again,  _ no loss there _ . 

Crisis averted, Wirt awkwardly pulls his sweater into his arms, feeling exposed. He coughs and shuffles back, wringing his hands, staring down at Dipper who seems to be struggling with how to feel. He keeps looking at the machine with something similar to embarrassment and shame, but a small flicker of pride underneath. Wirt almost finds himself wanting to crush that pride considering the mayhem he just caused, but he doesn’t. He’s always been quick with a retort, but it feels… mean, overly so. Dipper doesn’t seem like the type to wanna destroy things. Wirt can already see the beginnings of guilt taking over his features. He’s curling in on himself, making him look even smaller than he is, which, while not in build, definitely in stature.

Dipper eventually sighs and gestures to the wreck in front of them. “Well, we fixed it at least.” 

Wirt pulls up his hands forming air quotes. “Define ‘we’”

“Well, I wasn’t gonna say anything, but yeah, you’re right. I did all the work.”

Wirt laughs, louder and more genuine than is appropriate in this kind of situation, but screw it. “Yes of course, not me who stopped the fire and lost a sweater, but the person who started it in the first place, got it.”

Dipper gasps. “Oh no! Your sweater is a little smoky, whatever will you do? Meanwhile my poor flannel is ruined, beyond repair.” He holds it up to demonstrate. “Besides, I was the one who ripped the door off its hinges.”

He snorts. “Please, I’m sure you have a hundred others and ‘ripped it off its hinges’? Dipper that thing was so old and rusted a toddler could have pulled it off.”

“How’d you know? Have you been spying on my flannel stash?” Dipper looks adorably confused with big eyes and an eyebrow arched and not at all how Wirt expected him to be before the rest of the statement dawns on him and his mouth forms a perfect O in surprise. “That’s-- That’s not-- No they couldn’t have!!”

“Could too!” Wirt feels like an immature idiot, but it’s not bad? It’s... fun. This is a side of him,  _ Dipper  _ brought out a side of him he hasn’t gotten to reveal in a while, hasn’t seen in... well, he can’t remember the last time he laughed, this much, genuinely anyway. It had to have been ages and this stupid, idiotic, dramatic man is the one that brought it back.  _ Maybe moving wasn’t such a bad idea after all. _

Dipper’s laughing too and they’re both standing in a scorched diner in the middle of the day cracking up about the destruction around them and it’s not as weird as it sounds, or maybe it is. 

They eventually catch their breath and Dipper checks his watch. “Already!?” He frowns and looks at Wirt apologetically. “Look, I’m really sorry, I gotta go. I’m already late, but uh--” A blush creeps back across his face, which is an image Wirt is already starting to commit to memory with how often he’s seen it in just a few minutes. 

“If you ever wanna um… I know I probably didn’t make the  _ best _ first impression, but you’re new and if you need any help or anything, I owe you one, so uh give me a call?”

Wirt can’t do anything but stare, dumbfounded as Dipper gives him two thumbs up, mutters “cool” under his breath and walks out the door, running a hand through his hair.

Wirt leaves shortly after laughing to himself. “I wonder how long it’ll take him to realize he didn’t give me a phone number.”


End file.
